Monday 10 May 2010

Liverpool World Heritage Site-Before It Was Butchered


Forgot what it looked like before Liverpools Fib-Dems sanctioned its destruction. Liverpools World Heritage Site. Why couldnt they just leave it alone.

This is a letter in todays Daily Ghost
Black behemoths have no merit

SO GLIMPSE is the new view? Well, it is according to a spokesman for Liverpool City Council defending the flouting of development guidelines for the Mann Island site. It’s now OK, apparently, to block out all serious views of the “Three Graces” from the Liverpool side of the river with three black behemoths that have absolutely no architectural worth whatsoever.
If my memory serves me correctly, and it does, wasn’t it the question of views that scuppered The Cloud?
This had two slender, and architecturally distinguished towers that would have been constructed on The Strand, but, according to English Heritage and CABE would damage views of the Three Graces from The Strand, so that scheme was spectacularly abandoned. Now, instead of two slender towers and a Cloud, we have this development that blocks out everything – sorry, provides brief glimpses.
Oh, and yes, I nearly forgot, we also have a museum, built on top of some of Liverpool’s oldest history, almost on the river’s edge, which has attracted a substantial financial penalty because it flouts a “covenant” associated with views from one of the graces.
Could it possibly have been the same spokesman who, when there was an application to build an iconic 52-storey building at Brunswick, justified the rejection of the application by stating that the building would partially obscure the view – yes, view – of the Anglican Cathedral from a tiny conservation area in Birkenhead?
What I can’t understand is where are all these “experts” from the likes of English Heritage and CABE when this sort of thing happens; aren’t they supposed to be protecting our heritage or are they only concerned with preventing the construction of tall building as seems the case?
LDC, Sefton Park
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/views/letters-to-editor/2010/05/10/letters-to-the-editor-may-10-92534-26411124/

3 comments:

  1. Oh Wayne, that was so sad to watch. Yes there is terrible decay around the forgotten parts of the city and people left living in squalor as they throw up junk houses with a 25 year mortgage for a 30 year life span if you are lucky but there is still room for grief over what they have done to the very symbols of the city. It really does almost induce tears and a sick hollow feeling of disbelief.

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  2. The closing shot says it all - paradise lost.

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  3. Paradise Street. They paved Paradise..........and put up a parking lot.

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